ELITE Creative Director Steve Hamburg of Calcium

Steve Hamburg

Managing Partner, Chief Creative Officer

Calcium

Mapping Brand DNA

Steve Hamburg understands that a brand isn’t a tangible thing—it’s an idea that you experience. In Steve’s view, the big idea behind any great healthcare brand is a singularity of thought that imbues the product with attributes that are both rational and emotional, as well as personal and global. And just as a directional error of just one degree at the beginning of a transatlantic journey can leave you far from the intended destination, a slight misconception of a client’s brand means missing the target.

“Everything flows from there,” Steve explains. “If you’re off by even a little, the creative will be off. The tone, the personality, the look, the messages all extend from the central thesis that illuminates the brand.”

Getting it right doesn’t just happen. It’s the result of a rigorous process of information gathering, analysis, and synthesis. Under Steve’s guidance, Calcium uses a proprietary system called The Growth Process to strategically guide and unify all the various work streams. The system helps to ensure strategic, creative, and tactical solutions share the same underlying brand DNA. The result is often a magnified impact and intensified customer activation.

While Steve applies rigorous structure to the creative process, he also keeps the joy of unfettered creative thought alive in the room. He strives for complete participation in the early concepting phase because sometimes the most outlandish, left-field ideas are the ones that stick and ultimately become award-winning campaigns.

Steve also knows that the pharmaceutical marketplace doesn’t stand still. New players, new policies, patent challenges, budget shifts, and strategic pivots can all hamstring even the most successful brand identities. But Steve has the skills and experience to help brands successfully navigate through the choppy waters of change and emerge even stronger.

Ultimately, through his ability to precisely map brand DNA, Steve is able to bring brands—and businesses—vibrantly to life. And the passionate attention Steve brings to brands, he also brings to people. Because by unlocking human potential—and productively channeling the forces of thought, imagination, and feeling—Steve is able to consistently deliver work that resonates, inspires, and drives brands forward.

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